A Chinese state media-linked account has once again raised questions about Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips. Criticized by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday, the chips were called insecure and technologically behind, as well as not being sufficiently environment-friendly.
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The post argued that H20 chips might have a hardware “backdoor” for remote shutdowns, which is something the Chinese authorities recently announced they are investigating. A patch based on Chinese tradition can scare buyers that if a chip is “neither green nor high-tech nor safe,” then maybe you shouldn’t buy it.
While Nvidia hasn’t responded directly to these latest claims, it has previously denied that there are any secret backdoors allowing access or control in its products. The company says its specific hardware family lacks vulnerabilities that could permit unauthorized access from a remote location.
These H20 chips, meanwhile, were crafted for China the same year after the U.S. restricted the foreign sale of high-end AI chips in 2023. First banned for sale to China in April at the height of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, they were cleared in July after a policy turnaround.
The Cyberspace Administration of China met with Nvidia officials on July 31 over the security of their H20 chips and the following week asked Nvidia to enforce a rule over whether they could be “hacked.” The meeting was a fresh sign of Beijing’s heightened attention to technology self-sufficiency and cybersecurity in sensitive computing-system infrastructure.
However, they simply echo the earlier comments made by another state-run publication, People’s Daily, which had demanded proof of security from Nvidia to calm Chinese consumers and regain its market trust. Repeated warnings from influential state-linked platforms are a signal that concerns about foreign-made AI hardware are becoming more politically sensitive in China.
Though largely technical in nature, the H20 chips dispute underscores the tangled ecosystem of technology and trade policy, which now touches off national security worries with greater regularity within global semiconductor markets. As the core chip of AI technology continues to become increasingly important in economic and strategic competition, both China and the US are increasing scrutiny on imported and exported high-performance chips.
China is a major focus for Nvidia, but repeated concerns about the safety and performance of the H20 could impact its commercial viability. It is now the Yanghe set up to meet China’s security requirements, and in the face of U.S. regulatory constraints, a market with enough geopolitical tensions already.